Our Universe Might Be a Hologram Say Scientists

A group of scientists led by Austrian Daniel Grumiller proof that holographic principle also applies to real universe and not just in curved anti-de-sitter spaces.

Are we living in a two dimensional world and just perceive the third dimension? An international group of scientists has worked on a theoretical mathematical model that proofs that the holographic principle developed by physicist Juan Maldacena not only applies to exotic spaces, but also to our real universe.

Daniel Grumiller from the TU Vienna, Austria has suspected for quite some time that a correspondence principle could also hold true for our real universe. To test this hypothesis, gravitational theories have to be constructed, which do not require exotic anti-de-sitter spaces, but live in a flat space. For three years, he and his team at TU Wien (Vienna) have been working on that, in cooperation with the University of Edinburgh, Harvard, IISER Pune, the MIT and the University of Kyoto.

“If quantum gravity in a flat space allows for a holographic description by a standard quantum theory, then there must by physical quantities, which can be calculated in both theories – and the results must agree”, says Grumiller. Especially one key feature of quantum mechanics –quantum entanglement – has to appear in the gravitational theory.

When quantum particles are entangled, they cannot be described individually. They form a single quantum object, even if they are located far apart. There is a measure for the amount of entanglement in a quantum system, called “entropy of entanglement”.

Together with Ar/7/Bagchi, Rudranil Basu and Max Riegler, Daniel Grumiller managed to show that this entropy of entanglement takes the same value in flat quantum gravity and in a low dimension quantum field theory.

“This calculation affirms our assumption that the holographic principle can also be realized in flat spaces. It is evidence for the validity of this correspondence in our universe”, says Max Riegler (TU Wien). “The fact that we can even talk about quantum information and entropy of entanglement in a theory of gravity is astounding in itself, and would hardly have been imaginable only a few years back. That we are now able to use this as a tool to test the validity of the holographic principle, and that this test works out, is quite remarkable”, says Daniel Grumiller.

To make things clear. We are not living in a hologram. The work of Grumiller does not yet prove that we are indeed living in a hologram, but apparently there is growing evidence for the validity of the correspondence principle in our own universe.

Daniel Grumiller and colleagues from India and Japan have published an article in the journal “Physical Review Letters” with the results of their research into Hologram Principle.